Because He Needs It
by charis2770
Summary: This series will explore Pepper and Tony's journey through self-discovery and the interesting approach she takes to helping him deal with his inner demons. Hilarity will ensue. Expect smut, and BDSM themes. Don't read if that's not your thing
1. Tony is Always Late

**Because He Needs It**

**Chapter One: Tony's Always Late**

In which Pepper Potts makes a startling discovery about Tony Stark.

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If she didn't love him so much, she'd probably want to kill him. Oh hell, who is she kidding? She loves him ridiculously, and half the time she STILL wants to kill him! Like right now, when he's slithering his way out of another meeting it's crucial that he attend.

"Tony," she says patiently (losing patience with him is generally pointless as his response is simply to ignore it and roll right over the impatience as though it's happening in a different galaxy and to someone else), "This is the _president_ of your Board of Directors, and as the 'Stark' in Stark Technologies and the 'man' in Iron Man, I really think you need to meet him face to face to address the board's concerns."

Tony responds to this by crossing the room in four long strides, sliding his sinfully adept fingers into her hair, and kissing her. She thinks it's totally unfair he should be this good a kisser, as it's really difficult for her to keep her mind on the issue at hand when his tongue is doing the conga with hers like it's a professional ballroom dancer and his teeth are grazing her bottom lip and his mouth tastes like 200-year old single malt scotch and dark chocolate and sex.

"Tony!" she says, sharply and authoritatively. It actually comes out as "Tmmphm," though, because he doesn't stop kissing her long enough for her to get a single word out. She growls in frustration and bites his tongue. He jerks back from her in surprise, his brown eyes wide and startled, and licks a tiny fleck of blood off his lips.

"What'd you do that for?" he demands, and the wounded innocent routine would hold a lot more weight if his pupils weren't dilating and he wasn't breathing harder and looking at her with his brown eyes hot like molten caramel.

"I want you to listen to me, Tony," she says, as primly as she can when her heart is pounding like a trip hammer. He steps to her again, this time his hands grasp her hips and pull her up against him, and she feels his dick pressing into her belly.

"I am listening to you, Pep," he murmurs into her hair, as he reaches up and starts unbuttoning her blouse. "I'm listening to what your body's saying. Have I told you I'll die if I don't have you now? It's true, scout's honor, and do you really want to carry the responsibility for my untimely demise with you for the remainder of your days on this planet?"

"Tony," she says breathlessly, "You were never a boy scout."

"Semantics," he whispers, and now he's kissing her neck. She makes a small sound of need when his hand cups her breast and his thumb brushes her nipple, which contracts traitorously. "Unimportant details. Still need you. Now, Pepper. Need you naked and hot for me. Need inside you. Dying for you," he's muttering these pleas as he drags her blouse down her arms and her skirt off her hips. He's whispering his desperation against her skin when he laves her nipples with his tongue, tells her belly button fervently that he's wasting away as he speaks, for need of her pussy. Pushes her back onto his enormous sleek black desk and divests her of her panties as he swears to some of the freckles on her thighs that he cannot breathe for wanting her.

She forgets her name, let alone the details of the proposed meeting with Andrew Brightman, when he gently opens her with his fingers and his tongue strokes fervently over and over her clit. One finger slides inside and presses rhythmically on that one perfect spot. She digs her Manolo Blahniks into his back when she comes. He grabs her by the ankles and sucks on her anklebone, biting sharply and then licking away the small pain as he stands up and enters her with one smooth deep stroke. He wraps her legs firmly around his waist and then proceeds to fuck her blind, until she's panting and moaning and screaming for him. The papers she needs him to sign scatter the desk and floor and she doesn't notice. The glow from his arc reactor is imprinted on her retinas when she closes her eyes and cries out, coming for him again while he pounds, pounds, pounds them away to oblivion.

She's trying to restore some semblance of order to her hair, her clothing, and the stack of paperwork all at the same time while he sprawls unrepentantly in his desk chair. The top button of his fly is still open, and he hasn't buttoned his shirt. He's smiling smugly as he watches her.

"Have I told you lately that you're adorable when you're mussed, Miss Potts?" he drawls, taking a long sip of scotch and smiling that charming and infuriating one-sided naughty little boy grin of his that she loves at the same time that she wants to wipe it off his irritating face.

"Have I told you lately you weren't spanked enough as a child?" she snaps in annoyance as she hunts under a chair for the cover letter to a proposal she needed him to read. For several long moments she doesn't realize that her frustrated retort hasn't been met with one of his witty, endless and infuriating repartees. When she does, she glances over at him while she checks to see if she's finally recovered all the pages. He's staring at her. His mouth hangs open just a little, and she sees the tip of his tongue touch his bottom lip. Interesting. At that point he recovers his unshakable cool and his grin gets even bigger.

"Actually I think that's a new one. You're right, incidentally. When I was bad, my mother sent me to boarding school or bought me a new ratchet set. If I refuse to sign your silly papers or kiss the ass of this Dimbulb guy the board's voted in this year, do you promise to send me to Switzerland? I'll let you come too. We can play hooky and ski. Maybe I'll buy you an Alp."

He rambles on in the same vein for a while as she makes agreeable noises. She's shoved a pen in his hand and places page after page under his hand for him to sign, getting everything she needs, finally, by just letting him go on and on. Her eyes are demurely downcast upon the papers she's cranking out for his signature, hoping his rapidly growing fantasy about purchasing mountains and nude bathing in hot springs and finding out if they can do it on a ski lift and asking if she's interested in a foursome with some Swiss ski bunny twins he thinks he remembers from last time he was there (he has an eidetic memory, so if there were ever ski bunnies, he remembers perfectly well). She makes the appropriate sounds of interest or agreement when he pauses, but when he's on a roll like this, it doesn't really matter what the listener says as long as they don't try to shut him up. He winds down faster if you don't try to shut him up. She's not listening to him though. Nor is she really paying attention to the papers she's having him sign. She could manage those with her eyes closed and one hand tied behind her back. Getting his signature is an art she mastered years ago. No, she's thinking. Really hard.

She finally stops his rambling with a quick kiss.

"Thank you Mr. Stark, that will be all," she says in her most professional voice. As she leaves the room she looks back over her shoulder at him sprawled there in his chair. The king of the known universe (no matter what Thor would have to say about it) is damn sexy half-dressed and surrounded by the trappings of power. "I'll handle Mr. Brightman. I believe a brief appearance at the annual meeting as yourself and a visit from Iron Man to his son's 7th birthday party next month will quiet his concerns. And Tony?"

"Yes, Miss Potts?" His brown eyes are fond, and warm, and amused, but what she saw there just a couple of minutes before is still there too, a little bit.

"Be at my apartment tonight, at 7 p.m. sharp. Do not keep me waiting, or there will be consequences."

She shuts the door behind her firmly and goes to run his empire as she has always done, efficiently and faithfully. She's adept at multitasking though, so amid the meetings and faxes and emails and video conferences, she makes a few other arrangements, and she never stops thinking.

"_When I was bad my mother sent me to boarding school or bought me a new ratchet set."_

Sometimes Tony says some very revealing things about himself when all HE thinks he's doing is being witty and clever. He is, of course, witty and clever. Possibly he is ALMOST as witty and clever as he thinks he is. He's not, however, always as observant as he thinks he is. Her heart aches a little as she considers this statement. Tony is the epitome of a child of privilege. He was raised with every convenience and luxury money could buy. And by the best servants. She finds this almost unbearably sad, when she remembers her own father's big booming laugh and the way he would swing her mother around in his arms when he'd come home from work, and how he mother would yell at him to stop being a Neanderthal, laughing the whole time. How they would both help her with her homework, and go to movies and the park together. How they both taught her how to ride a bike and came to her piano recitals. How proud they were when she was accepted to college. Tony barely knew his mother. He was still pretty young when she died. His father, the famous Howard Stark, she knows little about. Tony rarely speaks of him, unless it is in a public speech where he extolls the man's achievements, or in private where he denigrates them. So yeah, issues there. Which, typically, he has no interest in discussing.

All in all though, her sympathy for his upbringing only occupies a tiny corner of her brain. Her lover may be a genius of engineering and technology, but she is a damn prodigy of efficiency and time management. The larger part of her brain is devoted entirely to the very strange look on his face at her exasperated comment. She delivers crisp orders to her assistant and doesn't miss a trick while she's thinking about how the glib Tony Stark was rendered even momentarily speechless. She video conferences with heads of nine different departments at once while she's playing back the memory of the expression on his face. She edits crucial details of a government contract while she muses on the telltale dilation of his pupils and the faint flush to his cheeks in the moments before he recovered his aplomb. She thinks back over their years of association, before they became lovers and since, and tries to recall if she's ever seen a hint of what she now suspects. She doesn't think so. She's certain there was no sign during the months following the day he pulled her from the secretarial pool, because she was far too in awe of him then to do anything but ask how high when she even _suspected _he might say "Jump." She knows now, in retrospect, that he began to be attracted to her when she remembered her spine and started going toe to toe with him when he was being insufferable. Which, face it, was most of the damn time. So maybe in a way, that's a hint in and of itself. But until they started sleeping together, she still fell solidly into the category of employee, and thus never quite his equal. Not that he ever treated her as less, just that…well…you might think about boinking your secretary, but you certainly never thought about…hm.

She's glad when her day is over. As evening has approached, she's begun to develop a serious case of butterflies. She must be completely crazy to be even considering this. They still have to _work_ together, for Heaven's sake! She tells herself the whole way home (she may spend a great deal of time in his, but she does have one, she's insisted on it) that she's not going through with it. That she'll fix him a nice dinner and after a couple of glasses of wine, seduce him on the floor in front of the fireplace. Much better plan, with a great deal less potential for disaster. She nods to herself, pleased with the practicality of the decision.

Then she remembers the last thing she said.

"_Do not keep me waiting, or there will be consequences."_

Well shit. First of all, when is Tony ever on time for anything? The man will be late to his own funeral. Secondly, because she has told him to be on time and because he simply cannot resist testing every damn thing, even if he was normally the most punctual man in the world, he would BE late tonight. Her practical decision has failed to account for this certainty. Tony has kept the U.S. Military waiting for hours. He was late for his own Senate hearing. There is no way on earth he's going to be at her place at 7. None. She's fucked. It's do or die now, because she hasn't left herself an out at all, and though he will never say so, she will lose a teensy fraction of his respect if she doesn't follow through. And though he may take her for granted sometimes, and that only because she runs his life and his empire so efficiently that he's ABLE to, he does respect her. It won't be much, probably less than a tenth of a percent, but they will both know it.

He actually doesn't ring her doorbell until almost 8:00.

She's sitting in the chair she has situated facing the entryway to the living room when she calls out for him to come in. He has a key, so he lets himself in. When he comes around the corner from the foyer to the living room, her arms are crossed over her chest, her legs crossed and one foot joggling impatiently in the air. The wooden spoon she had been using to stir the béarnaise sauce wags in her right fist in annoyance. She stares at him expressionlessly and does not speak. She is wearing a knee-length black pinstriped skirt so tight he would be able to see her panty lines, were she to be standing. Or not wearing a thong. Her extremely businesslike white blouse shows little cleavage but molds perfectly to her upper body. Her hair is pulled back in a perfect chignon. Her makeup is dramatic, but severe. She gazes impassively at him (she hopes, while her heart threatens to burst the top buttons of the blouse) and waits. He grins his usual charming smile.

"Sorry I'm late, Pep. You know the drill. Phone calls. Emails. Fury being a dick. Steve had to call me and tell me he couldn't use the gym on the 17th floor because Romanoff and Barton were engaging in illicit activities on the weights machine. His words, by the way, not mine, because who even says shit like that anymore. Then there was this minor breakthrough I had on a new power source, which actually turned out not to be one after all. Then traffic was a complete bitch. I think there was a 37 car pileup on 73rd."

She says nothing, letting him wind down into a little bit of uncertainty, waiting for her to roll her eyes and forgive him as usual. He takes a step towards her, then pauses. He apologizes again.

"Do I look like I give a shit about any of your excuses?" she finally says icily. He takes half a step backwards in surprise, because she's never gotten angry at him for being late. It's just part of who he is, and one of the things he values in her is that she never tries to change him. Before he can start to get angry, she stands up and turns away from him.

"Come with me," she says coldly, and goes into the kitchen. She doesn't wait to see if he will follow. She knows he will.

The table is set for two, with candles and wineglasses and a bottle of Cab breathing by one of the settings. A platter of rare chateaubriand graces the center of the table, surrounded by bowls of fingerling potatoes, steamed asparagus, and salad greens. She glances at him, sees him take in the trouble she has gone to, and acts quickly before he has a chance to feel truly rotten for being late. She's counting on a tiny thread of guilt to make him compliant, but making him feel like shit isn't in the program.

"Do you see this, Tony?" she snaps. He flinches a little and looks chagrined.

"It looks great, Pepper. I really am…"

"Shut up. It not only looks great, it IS great, but you won't be eating any of it."

His head rears back in shock when she tells him to shut up.

"Hey, come on, I'm sure it isn't too cold, let's not let this ruin din…"

"I said," she purrs, stepping close to him and taking a fistful of his dress shirt in her hand. "You won't be eating any of it. You are rude, irresponsible, and very, very late. I won't tolerate it, Tony."

She's standing quite close to him, so she feels rather than hears the sudden intake of his breath, and watches his pupils dilate.

"Are you gonna punish me, Miss Potts?" he asks with a sly grin. She twists his shirt tighter so that it constricts just a little bit around his neck.

"Do you need to be punished, Mr. Stark?" she breathes into his ear. She feels him shudder a little bit. Oh thank fucking God, she isn't wrong. He's still trying to hide it though.

"What's it going to be?" he says glibly. "Water boarding? Been there, done that. Gotta tell you it's pretty effective but it'll make a huge mess in your bathroom. Bamboo slivers? Wouldn't be my first choice, but not bad. Electricity? I'm kinda partial to that one, though I'd like it better if you let me put on the suit first. Goes great things for its power capacity. Then there's always b…"

"You talk too much, you insufferable brat," she hisses. She feels another gasp and her mouth curves in a small smile. "You think you're so witty. So clever. You think your _scintillating_ personality is enough to make up for your deplorable lack of common courtesy. You're not enough of a problem to deserve torture, Mr. Stark. You're a spoiled, selfish little boy and I am going to punish you as you deserve."

He stares at her once more with his mouth hanging open slightly, again at a loss for words. Twice in one day. It's a record.

"Bend over the table and put your hands on the edge. You'll get what you've earned looking down at the lovely meal you won't be enjoying this evening."

"Pepper…" he says. He's going to slither out of it now, she realizes. Just like he slithers out of everything that makes him feel uncomfortable or out of his depth. He slithers out of everything he thinks might be boring or tedious too, but she doesn't think that's the case right now.

"Don't tell me you're _scared, _Tony," she mocks, smirking at him. She plasters the smuggest look she has on her face, as if she wants him to back out, knows he will. She shows him the face she uses on the rare occasion when she gets the better of him in an argument. She knows he hates that. He lifts one eyebrow at her.

"Scared? Me? Good one Pep. Who was it exactly who saved the entire known world by carrying a nuclear warhead through a wormhole, thereby destroying an entire alien invasion, all by himself? Oh right right, I think that would be ME. No, ha, I was just going to say I hope you're careful. I wouldn't want you to sprain your wrist or anything."

She wonders sometimes if Tony has any idea how easily she can manipulate him. If she loved him less or ambition more, she'd worry about her motives. But she only presses his buttons when it's important. And despite the fact that what's happening is twisted and mostly about sex, she still feels like it is important somehow. She feels like nobody in Tony's life has ever really given him what he needed, and that now Tony never lets anyone know what he really needs because he's too sure they'll let him down. Tony indulges his own every whim and gives himself everything he wants and fulfills his own needs because he learned as a brilliant little boy that the people in his life would fail him. He is always larger than life and more than human because he can't allow himself to be merely human. She thinks she is the only person he has ever known who has thought of this, and she only hopes she's not going to screw it up. So, because she knows Tony cannot refuse a challenge, she has challenged him. And he has answered the challenge just as she expected he would. God, the responsibility terrifies her.

Revealing none of this (she hopes) she looks pointedly at the table and doesn't respond to him. He grins that cocky grin, shoots his cuffs and leans forward, placing his palms on the edge of the table. He wiggles his hips a little and sticks his ass out, mocking her. She keeps her face expressionless, and places the palm of her left hand on the small of his back. He snickers a little, but she thinks now he's whistling in the dark. She brings the back of the wooden spoon down on the seat of his pants, hard. She knows it doesn't really hurt him very much, not through two layers of fabric. But he sucks in his breath hard through his nose and she sees his fingers whiten on the table. It isn't pain, just shock. She smacks him again.

"Pepper…" he whispers, and this time there is no hint that he's trying to slither out. Her name sounds a little like a plea, like he's asking for something he doesn't really understand. She's not altogether sure she understands either, but she hopes to hell she's going to figure it out as they go along.

"You want to shut your mouth right about now, Tony," she says in a glacial voice, and hits him again. She doesn't really stop to think about the fact that she's spanking one of the world's richest men, and a superhero, and her boss, over her kitchen table like a naughty schoolboy. If she does, she'll hyperventilate, and it's way too late for that now. She covers the seat of his pants with sharp blows of the spoon, smacking hard and fast. After about five minutes of it, he's shifting back and forth, switching his weight from one foot to the other. She stops, and brushes her hand down the curve of his ass. He sighs gustily, and his hips press backwards into her hands just a tiny bit.

"Tony," she whispers. It takes him a moment to register that she's speaking to him. "Tony!" she says more sharply.

"Ah. Huh? I mean, yes Miss Potts?" he stammers. She suppresses a smile.

"Pull down your pants."

"I…oh…what?"

She cracks the spoon down on the lower curve of his left cheek as hard as she can and he gasps.

"Pull. Down. Your. Pants." She punctuates each word with a hard spank. "NOW!"

She's not positive, but she thinks his fingers tremble just a little bit when he unbuckles his belt, unbuttons his pants, unzips them and slowly lowers them to his knees. He's wearing black silk boxer shorts. She strokes his ass again, liking the feel of the silk under her palm, and marveling that his skin is very warm through the fabric. He shudders, and returns his hands to the tabletop without her telling him to.

"Good boy," she murmurs, and this makes him shudder harder.

She resumes the spanking with vigor, and the thin silk does a great deal less to cushion the blows. The sound of the spoon is less of a whap and more of a crack now, and he's flinching a little bit. The muscles of his back and shoulders are rigid under his shirt, and the back of his neck is red. He's adorable like that, bent over her table, his pants tangled around his knees, his exceptional ass round against the taut silk of his underwear, the tail of his white Brooks Brothers shirt just barely not getting in her way. Because he's staring fixedly at the tabletop and not at her, she lets herself steal a glance at the front of his boxers and is gratified to see that he's sporting an erection of epic proportions. On the one hand, she's relieved to know that she's doing this right, but on the other hand, the part of her that is just flat fucking LOVING it thinks…dirty boy. Because she's feeling mean and she really IS tired of him always being late for every damn thing, she smacks him on the backs of his thighs, below the edges of his boxers. He yelps, and starts to straighten up. She presses hard on the small of his back.

"Don't," she warns softly. He makes a tiny whining noise in the back of his throat that thrills her for some reason. She hardly recognizes herself right now. She becomes abruptly aware that she has soaked through the crotch of her thong panties and her inner thighs are slick with her own arousal. She hooks her thumbs in the waistband of his boxers and slides them down.

"Wait," he says, a little desperately. "Enough! Pepper!"

"Do you have something to say to me, Tony?" she purrs. She feels him think about it. Feels him nearly stand up and decide to put an end to this. Her hand gently strokes the bright red cheeks of his bottom. He makes a small sound.

"No," she says urgently. "Not yet. You want this. Tony…you positively require it."

And like a switch being flipped, the tension leaves his shoulders and he drops his head, after he nods once. She grips the spoon hard, takes a deep breath. Hopes wildly that she's not going to chicken out now. She resumes beating his ass, only this time the sound the spoon makes against his naked flesh is sharp and loud in her ears. He's breathing hard. She pushes, covering his now-scarlet ass with burning spanks. She sees the tips of his fingers pressing hard into the surface of the table, white around the nail beds. His arms are shaking a little. She knows damn well the pain isn't too much for him. He has withstood real torture, after all, and the times when he has to replace his arc reactor's core he has to suffer the early stages of heart failure each and every time. Tony is no stranger to pain, and she is not hurting him nearly as badly as that. Still, she thinks this is different. That it is so…intimate, so humbling, to be treated like a naughty child, she thinks it is somehow more shattering than greater pains. His backside is dark red now, and each time she spanks him, the outline of the spoon's bowl shows white against the deep rich color. He makes an inarticulate sound that is trapped somewhere between a whimper and a moan. She feels it in her bones. She is at the same time tremendously aroused and also tremendously sorry for him. She has no idea how this can be so, but she's not about to stop and dissect these two emotions. She brings the spoon down harder, and he moans softly. He's close, so close to something, some breakthrough, so she speeds it up, and drops hard snapping spanks on his upper thighs. He yelps in pain, and she grins fiercely. She shoves his feet as far apart as his pants will allow with her knee, and the spoon cracks cruelly on the tender skin on the insides of his thighs. She knows how sensitive he is there, because she has kissed him there many times and felt the muscles in his legs quiver at the stroke of her tongue. He can't be quiet anymore.

"_Aahh," _he yelps. "Pepper! No more! _Ohh_. I'm…_guh_…I'm SORRY! _Ow! _Christ, that fucking hu…_uhhhh_…hurts. _OW!_ Do yuh…_oh_…you want me to…_ahh_…beg? Pepper! Please! _Ohgodohgod_! Please Pepper! _Noo! _Miss Potts! I am suh…_gah_…so FUCKING SORRY! PLEASE!"

There's something in his voice at the last. Something desperate and frightened and so needy it makes her heart clench. She thinks they've probably only scratched the surface at the darkness down inside him where his need lives, but she hears that he has taken all he can right now, tonight. The spoon clatters to the floor and her hands stroke his back. He slides to his knees using the table to keep himself from just collapsing. She goes down with him, and he turns to her, blindly, putting his face in her neck. He isn't crying, not quite, but he's wrecked anyhow. He's trembling, and his face is hot and damp against her throat. She wraps her arms around him and he returns the embrace fiercely, clutching her as though she is his lifeline. She rather thinks that right now, she really is. The sensation of him, shuddering and shaken and shattered in her arms, because of her, _for _her, is heady. Her breasts feel as though they'll burst the buttons on her skin-tight blouse, and her nipples are so tight it's almost painful. She aches between her legs and up into her belly like a bruise and every inch of her is alive with need. She pushes on his shoulders a little bit, but he doesn't budge. She runs her fingers through his curls and he sighs in pleasure at the caress, then gasps when she makes a fist and pulls his head back by his hair, so she can look him in the eyes. His own are slightly glassy and wide and wild.

"Tony," she says sternly. The sharp tone in her voice makes his eyes focus on her more clearly. He clears his throat.

"Yes…Ma'am…" he whispers. His voice is raw and nearly childish in its meekness. God, she loves him absurdly.

"I forgive you," she says softly. "And you get to make it up to me now. Get up. Go to my bedroom. Don't pull your pants all the way up. I want to walk behind you and watch your ass. You should see it, Tony. So hot, so red. So _punished._"

"Christ Pepper," he breathes, and he is rapidly becoming a lot more aroused than he is sorry. Which is the point, after all.

"You don't want to test me right now, lover," she purrs. "I have a big flat hairbrush in my bathroom and my arm's not nearly tired." Good Lord, she must be out of her mind. This can't be her. And yet, fuck yes, it is, and she's having so much fun right now, she doesn't know if she ever wants to stop. He doesn't say a word, which is oh my God a first for him in all the years she's known him. He just stares at her and his eyes go dark and he swallows so hard she hears something click in his throat. He scrambles to his feet, which is a little awkward for him since he's tangled up in his pants and underwear. He only pulls them up high enough on his thighs so he can walk without falling down. She follows behind him as he shuffles as quickly as he can to her bedroom. He stops inside the door and turns to wait for her, watching expectantly, waiting for her to tell him what to do. She marvels at the power of it. While he stares, his eyes burning holes into her the whole time, she unbuttons her blouse very slowly. He licks his lips a little when her siren-red lace bra comes into view. She opens the blouse, but leaves it on. She goes to the bed, crawls slowly to the top, letting him watch her ass as she does it. She turns, lays down propped against a mound of pillows. Watching him, she slowly works the tight skirt up to her hips so that he can see the lace of her panties when she parts her thighs slightly. She crooks a finger at him and he lunges for the bed, letting go of his pants. He's panting in frustration when they impede him, kicking them off, his hands reverently stroking the insides of her calves and knees as he crawls higher on the bed. He buries his face in her thighs, making small sounds of need. She lets him press her legs apart. He's whispering urgently as his fingers pull her panties to the side.

"God. Pepper. Let me. I need to. Jesus. Fuck. Eat you up. Anything for you Pep. Anything. Die for you. So sorry. Taste you. God, let me taste you."

Then his mouth is on her, hot and hungry and she gasps when his tongue rasps over her swollen clit and his teeth graze her and he suckles gently, still making noises in the back of his throat as though he can't help himself. She threads her fingers in his hair and tells him he's a good boy. He whimpers against her clit and that's all it takes. She screams when she comes, because as good as he has always been at licking her pussy, he has never been this frantic, this desperate to please her, and she's so turned on from just _owning_ him like this that it nearly blinds her she comes so hard. And he does not stop. He sucks on her clit and jams two fingers into her sopping cunt, scissoring them inside her, pressing hard and deep. She moans and her nails scrape against his scalp. It makes him whine a little, his mouth pressed to her like he's starving for her, and before long she's coming again, panting and crying out for him. She tugs on his hair, pulling him up, up until he's above her, staring into her eyes and she sees he is still wild and lost in what she's done to him. She smiles, and she kisses him, tasting herself on his mouth, and when she rolls him, he goes over easily. He makes a small pain sound when his beaten bottom comes into contact with her bedspread and she laughs throatily.

"Oh yes," she murmurs happily. She straddles him, hooks a finger in her panties to make sure they stay pushed out of the way, and sinks down. Takes him in deep, her insides clenching and shuddering around him. She presses his hands into the pillow above his head. "Just like this. Keep your hands there, Tony. I'm having you the way I want. And I want you to feel it, feel your ass burning while I do it."

His eyelids flutter as his eyes roll back into his skull when she speaks. His hands twitch convulsively, but he doesn't move them. She rolls her hips and they both gasp. She grinds herself down hard against him, hears him whine in his throat and he squirms. Fuck, it's hot. She throws her head back and rides him hard, feeling him strong and deep and firm inside her. Feels the fine quivering in his muscles as he lets her take him, as he fights against his own impulses to take control of the situation and reclaim his dignity. He doesn't though. He pants and gasps and cries out in pain and pleasure and desperation as he lets her do whatever she wants, and she comes twice more before she takes pity on him, reaches up and takes his hands, places them on her hips. He groans raggedly and lifts her up a few inches as he raises his knees behind her, enough so he can hammer himself up into her. He says her name over and over again while he fucks her, hard and mindless and needy. When he comes, his fingers dig into her ass hard enough to leave bruises and she leans forward and kisses him, swallowing his guttural shout of release and relief. His arms go around her and drag her against him tightly, and they're both shaking, and shuddering, and laughing.

Later, while they lie naked together in her bed and eat pizza and watch Top Gear, she licks some sauce off his chin and smiles at him.

"I really am sorry about dinner, Pep," he says, smiling back. She raises herself on one elbow and laughs a little.

"Don't be. I didn't cook it. I had your personal chef deliver it. I never intended us to actually eat it."

"You are a devious woman, and I'm glad you're on my side. Remind me to give you an enormous raise."

"Okay. Think you'll be that late for dinner next time?" she says, poking him in the ribs. He grabs her wrist and bites her offending finger gently.

"Are you gonna spank me like that again if I am?" he asks curiously.

"Oh, much harder," she assures him with a smug smile.

"Hm. I have to tell you, Pep. I think I'm probably gonna be later."


	2. Do Real Men Really Never Cry?

**Chapter 2: Do Real Men Really Never Cry?**

In which Tony feels confused but can't help himself, so Bruce does. NOT Slash! Smut, kink, and general filth.

He is the King of about half the known world. A captain of industry. Master of his own Destiny. When he calls, the President of the United States will put his own cabinet and the Senate Judiciary Committee and several Supreme Court Justices on hold to answer. He owns every-damn-thing, or at least everything worth owning. To top THAT off, he is a God damned SUPERHERO and not that long ago, he saved the world.

So why, he wonders, why the FUCK is he standing here in his own office so uncomfortable in his own skin that he can't get a thing accomplished? He isn't sure whether it's the fact that he's wearing Pepper's royal blue satin panties under his Armani trousers, or if it's the fact that sitting down at the moment makes him feel a lot like he's planting his ass in a pail of ground glass, or if it's the fact that his dick is so hard he could pound NAILS with it. As he's nearly as good a multi-tasker as his lover (though nobody will ever be as good as Pepper, nobody), he's pretty sure it's actually a combination of all three of those things and he's just experiencing them all fully, all at the same time. Never let it be said, after all, that he has a one-track mind! Nope. He's learning he's perfectly capable of being humiliated and agonized and horribly aroused all at the same fucking time, thankyouverymuch. And damned if he hadn't thanked her just this morning too, after she beat his bare ass with that vicious hairbrush of hers and told him since he'd been a girly little coward last night when she'd asked him to let go and cry for her, then he could wear girl panties and think about whether he would rather be a bitch or a man. And he's damned if he has any idea which one is which right now, or which choice is the right answer! How the hell was he supposed to know when he'd kissed her that first time that Pepper would turn out to be so mean? And he loves her in spite of it. Oh, who is he kidding? He loves her because of it. Absurdly. He hasn't been so turned on in his whole life, ever, as he has since the night three weeks ago when he was late to dinner at her apartment because he wanted to see what would happen. Never seems to know what's good for him. That's his problem, he thinks morosely, trying to ignore the erection and pay attention to Bruce, who is eyeing him a little strangely while he shares a report about tachyon fluctuations recorded during he and Jane's last experiment with her wormhole. Why Bruce can't just take the report straight to Fury and leave him in PEACE for a little while, and he could just take care of this little problem…well, part of it anyway…and be able to live out the rest of his day secure in his own awesomeness, he'd just like to know. He becomes suddenly aware that Bruce is silent, looking at him a little warily.

"What?" he demands.

"Are you okay, Tony?" asks the physicist. His concern is unfeigned. Bruce is his friend, and a good one, because he's one of the few people Tony knows who don't piss him off. And who is almost as smart as he is. Tony won't ever say smarter. No need to get crazy.

"Fine," he says nonchalantly. He is, if nothing else, always totally cool and at ease. He ignores the fact that he's squirming just a tiny bit as he thinks this. "Why do you ask?"

"Hm. No reason I guess," says Bruce, who is starting to look a little bit amused. "You're just sort of acting like you have ants in your pants. Got Pepper stowed under your desk waiting for me to leave?"

"Ha fucking ha, Banner. No, and if she heard you say something like that, I would not be responsible for the consequences."

Bruce's left eyebrow quirks.

"Big one for consequences is she?" he says. Tony's almost positive he's smirking. Damn him.

"What the hell's gotten into you, Banner? Fling a god around and put a big hole in my penthouse floor, manage to avoid killing your lab partner just one time, and you act like you have a sense of humor all of a sudden."

Bruce, startlingly, actually smiles at him.

"My lab partner, as you so flatteringly call her, is dating a demigod. And she talks to me. After giving her advice on substances strong enough to tie Thor to his headboard, and listening in to that…hm…enlightening exchange between the two of them after Jane nearly got herself killed by the other guy…"

"You had that one, Banner. All the way. I had a bird's eye view on it, and I know what I saw. You keep going this way, you're not going to be allowed to whine about putting your team mates' lives at risk anymore."

Bruce's other eyebrow slants up to join the first one.

"I hardly think you're in a position to judge. You've never seen inside his…my…head."

"Didn't need to. My astrophysicist wasn't ever in any real danger. You're all talk, my large surly friend. I'm not even going to call you rage monster anymore. Mildly annoyed monster, that's all you get. Sorry dude."

"Tony….you're trying to change the subject," says Banner, and has the nerve to look amused.

"No I'm not. I'm just trying to make you understand everything isn't always about you, Bruce. Geez. You really can be a whiner sometimes, you know that? You need to get laid."

"Apparently," says Bruce drily, "so do you." He looks pointedly at Tony's crotch and isn't that a fine how-to-do, when one of your only friends takes to eyeballing your junk in your own office. In broad daylight.

"Watch where you point those pretty brown eyes, Bruce baby, or I'll start to suspect what others already know, that my mouthwatering physique and dazzling intellect have made yet another conquest of confirmed bachelor David Bruce Banner. It's going to be all over the tabloids if you're not careful. They have cameras now that can capture a calf-eyed gaze from half a mile away."

Bruce, who is usually no more immune to being irritated by him than any of this other colleagues, refuses to be deflected. Or irritated.

"Damn Stark. She's really doing a number on you isn't she? At least Jane has the guts to admit her lover bosses her around in the sack. I'd have thought your ego could handle it, it being the size of the known galaxy after all."

"My ego," says Tony with great dignity which is not at ALL damaged by the aforementioned blue satin panties OR the ground glass in his pants OR the raging hard-on, "Can handle anything. Including singlehandedly saving the world."

"Huh. I don't think you're going to be able to use that one for much longer. You need to move on. The rest of us have. To tachyon particles…"

"Right. Tachyon particles. Fascinating. Tell me more, I'm all ears."

"…and more intriguing subjects like what's going on with you and Pepper," finishes Bruce heartlessly. Christ, has the man always been this impossible, or is it a recent development?

"Nothing is going _on_, as you so eloquently put it and by that I mean not eloquently at all by the way, between me and Pepper except hour after hour of sizzling hot sex that would melt your adorable green ramie boxers to your presumably enviable green monster junk if you knew about it. How big is it, by the way? Inquiring minds definitely want to know."

"Inquiring minds are more interested in why you seem even less able to sit the fuck down and take a meeting than usual, Tony. Nobody's interested in my junk, green or otherwise. Spill. Are things ok with you and Pepper? Good Lord, Jane's not nearly this much of a wuss about talking about it, and you'd expect it from a girl!"

Well fuck me, he thinks. Does Fury just send out a damn memo to every prospective member of the Avengers called "How to Push Tony Stark's Buttons," or is he passing out pamphlets on street corners now.

"At least when Jane wears panties, it's because they belong to her in the first place," he mutters darkly, tugging in what he hopes is a surreptitious manner at his restricting and strangely erotic new undergarment. Bruce steeples his fingers in front of his mouth thoughtfully. This is what Tony decides to call his expression, because he's not willing to come to terms with the thought that Banner's doing it to conceal a huge grin.

"Anything you want to talk about?"

"Fuck, Bruce. I talk more than any twelve people I know and when it comes to this…whatever the hell it is…I am at a loss for words. I don't know what the hell I'm doing. I don't even think Pepper does either. We're operating without a manual and I don't even know how to turn around. Is this shit supposed to be scarier than facing down Chitauri invaders? Cause it is. I'm one of the richest men in the world, and one of the smartest. I own almost as much shit as God, and I dress up in a nearly impervious metal suit and fight evil in my spare time. How the hell is it supposed to make me feel that my girlfriend makes me wear her underwear and leads me around by the dick? Sometimes literally. There is just something fundamentally wrong happening here. It's like watching a train wreck happening and not knowing how to stop it. Jesus." He threads his fingers through messy dark curls and tugs in frustration. Bruce, the asshole, is looking at him sympathetically.

"Maybe you should be talking to Clint instead of me, Stark," he says finally. "I don't have a lot of experience with this kind of stuff."

"Fuck you, Banner. You asked. No! You PESTERED! Besides, you give Foster advice how to tie up the god of thunder."

"Um…yeah…about that. All I said was that there isn't anything that can restrain him that I know of. Sorry."

"Some friend you are."

"Talk to Clint."

"I don't want to talk to Legolas. I'm talking to you. Barton's the sickest fuck I've ever known. His advice is just going to be to turn the tables on her and take turns, because that works for him and the Mistress of Death."

"So?"

"So that won't work for us. Pepper doesn't…she isn't…There's not anything in her that wants…that. Not on the receiving end, anyway."

"Are you sure?"

Tony thinks about this for a minute. He knows it's true, he's just not sure HOW he knows. How do you explain to someone that when someone else has had their hand on your heart, literally, and you are both the only thing the other has, you just…know stuff. Kind of like the sneaky bitch saw this about him, saw a need he hadn't even known he had, at least not any deeper than he'd known he got a kick out of chicks tying him to the bed with their pantyhose or blindfolding him with neckties and shit. How can he explain that even as she has stripped him down to the bone and seen a lot more than he ever really planned on her seeing, she has also revealed a lot about herself. Pepper does the things she does…to him….for him…because she loves him for some inexplicable reason, and she thinks it's something he needs. He's not sure if that's true or not. He knows when she's bitchy and sassy and bossy it excites him. He knows when she makes him do the most outrageously embarrassing things that he comes so hard in the end that it's like being born. Does he need it? He doesn't know. He's too confused and humiliated and he's questioning his fucking manhood too hard to be able to see clearly. Except he's very sure she doesn't want him to trade places with her.

"Yeah," he says at last. "Don't ask me to tell you how I'm sure, but I am. The insane shit Barton and Natasha do for each other wouldn't work for Pepper."

"Ohhhkay," says Bruce slowly, and he looks like he really is trying to think of useful advice to give, which is weirding Tony out more and more by the second. "Are you unhappy?"

"No! Shit no. I'm just…hell if I know. I'm Tony Fucking Stark, Bruce! I don't let my secretary dominate me. I'm not a pussy. This isn't….it isn't me."

"I suppose the boner you haven't been able to get rid of yet isn't you either?" asks Bruce drily. Tony glares at him.

"See if I ever buy you any more uranium, dickhead," he grumbles.

Bruce sighs.

"Tony. Do you honestly think there would be Dominatrices all over the world, who charge hundreds of bucks an hour to men who asked to be beaten and tied up and tortured for fun, if the only men who wanted those things were pussies? Because it takes a good bit of disposable income to be able to afford that kind of service. You don't get that kind of disposable income by being a pussy either. Powerful men get off on exactly the stuff you're sitting here beating yourself up over, you dumbass. They get tired of having to be in control all the damn time, but they've worked too hard for it to be able to just…turn it off. So they pay someone to take it from them. You, my shortsighted friend, are just too hung up on yourself to see that. Pepper sees it. She's a bright woman, who nevertheless still seems to love your stupid ass. Nobody but you thinks less of you for what you want. Get out of your own fucking way Tony, and be who you are."

And he gets up and leaves Tony's office, taking his tachyon particles with him. Bruce, he thinks, is possibly actually very close to as smart as he is. He just sort of wishes Bruce had as much insight about his own problems, because everybody but Banner can see that the Hulk is a much bigger problem for _Banner_ than he is for all the rest of them.

He takes his lunch break in Greenwich Village so he can visit a little shop he has passed by before. And ok, slowed down a lot when he did so, to look in the window. Dammit. Bruce is going to be impossible if he ever finds out he was right.

With his heart in his throat, he carries what he buys there to Pepper's office, where she is engaged in an overseas call (if the fact that she's speaking Mandarin is any indication). He waits for her to be finished, standing on the threshold, which is new for him. He usually just barges in. What he's bringing her doesn't seem suited to his usual style though. He's actually trying kind of hard not to think too much about it just now, or he's going to chicken out. She hangs up the phone and looks up at him. She's businesslike, and looks flawless in her dignified Gucci skirt and tailored blouse. He doesn't know how she manages to walk on those mile-high railroad spikes she calls heels, but he's thankful she does. They make her legs look fantastic.

"Can I help you, Tony?" she asks politely. He steps in, clears his throat. Fuck, this is harder than he'd thought it was going to be. She watches him standing there like an idiot, and she doesn't say anything to help him. Damn it. He guesses that's kind of the point though. He crosses to her desk, where she has risen to meet him. He lays his purchase down on the desk, where it rolls a couple of inches before it stops. He clasps his hands behind his back and clears his throat. Again. He already did that once. Hell. The polished three-foot length of rattan with its leather-wrapped grip reminds him powerfully of European boarding school. Pepper's eyebrows shoot upwards as she gazes at it.

"I…" he says, and curses himself for being a moron. Tony Stark is never a moron. This is stupid. He should just leave. She picks it up and tests its flexibility between her hands. It's supple. It bends, but it won't break, not unless she deliberately snaps it over her knee or something. Her mouth…Jesus, he loves her mouth…quirks up at one corner and her blue eyes slide to him, speculating.

"Did you want to say something, Tony?" she asks gently. He sighs. He remembers the first time he flew the suit, once he'd managed to stop destroying his cars and getting extinguished by Dummy. He hadn't hesitated then. The consequences of this are a thousand times less deadly. Fuck it. He can do this.

"I'm a man, Pepper," he says, and his voice doesn't tremble even a little bit. "And I need this."

He turns to face her desk, unfastening his pants as he does so. He lowers them, along with the blue panties, and bends over the flat mahogany surface. He's still sore from last night and this morning.

"I love you, Tony," Pepper whispers feelingly. He feels the cool smoothness of the cane press against his bare ass. This is going to hurt like bloody hell.

It does. He takes it as long as he can, and he throttles down brutally on the pride that keeps trying to raise its mindless idiotic head and make him fight what he wants to feel. Finally, wrenched and shaking, and oh, so _fucking_ sore, he hears her set it down, and then his head is in her lap as he sags to the floor and tears dampen her skirt. It's brutal. He's utterly lost. He's a shameless wreck of a human being at her feet.

He's so happy he could cry. So he does.


	3. Issues

**Because He Needs It Part 3**

**Issues**

In which Tony gets in his own way again and the price is high

While she keeps one eye on the clock and the other on her office door and tries to keep her voice steady and professional, Pepper muses that her job has become so much easier since she began dominating the incorrigible Tony Stark that she can't believe she didn't try it sooner. Via holographic link, she reassures the CFO of an important Japanese manufacturer which produces a particular microchip they use for one of their clean energy products that Mr. Stark's obligation to the Avengers will indeed not result in another alarming dip in stocks but has instead sent their shares soaring, she does complex math silently in her head. The conversation is taking entirely too long She has another teleconference in thirty minutes and needs enough time between meetings for something vital. At long last she's able to foist Mr. Nakamura off on one of their financial analysts who can provide him hard data that should reassure him a lot better than her words. Nakamura's a big one for cold, hard data. She sighs in relief, glancing at the clock again and seeing that she still has fifteen minutes before she has to deal with the head scientist on the arc reactor project.

Thank god, she has time. She sucks in a shuddering breath and lets the rigid muscles in her back relax from the tension of self-control. Her left hand reaches under the desk and her manicured nails slide through curly dark hair.

"Such a good boy," she murmurs as she leans back in her chair and slides her hips forwards a little more to meet his questing tongue. He's been down there since before she received the call from Japan, over half an hour. He makes a small humming sound in the back of his throat when she touches him, and the vibration of it against her clit is enough to send her over the edge. Ripples of pleasure rolls through her and she groans ecstatically and tugs on his hair. His soft whimper drags out her orgasm until she has to bite her lip not to scream. When she finishes, she pushes her chair back and beckons him out from the deep well under her desk where he kneels. He moans a little when he straightens up at her gesture and his aching knees pop.

"Thank you, Mr. Stark," she says with a smile. "That will be all."

"Heartless woman," he pouts, and adjusts his pants a little to accommodate his erection.

"Don't worry," she says reassuringly. "You'll get yours later tonight."

"Your place or mine?" he asks.

"Yours," she says after a moment's debate. "The little old lady in the apartment next to mine? Mrs. Perkins with the three Chihuahuas? She's been looking at me kind of funny whenever we happen to run into each other. Your place is soundproofed."

With that statement, she gives him a little shove towards the door. He looks back over his shoulder as he goes.

"I'm not paying you enough," he says fervently.

"You certainly aren't."

When she gets off the elevator to his penthouse, the sun is more than halfway down. It's been a long day. He's waiting for her, patiently, obediently. He hands her a daiquiri and they sit on the couch. He pulls her feet into his lap and slides off her shoes, pressing his knuckles into her tired arches, making her groan in pleasure. His lips quirk in a small smile.

"Rough day….Mistress?" he asks. She hears the tiny hesitation in his voice and looks at him from under lowered eyelids. He seems a little edgy, and there's reluctance in his body posture. Well then.

"God Tony, that feels fantastic. And can we just….not…tonight? Will you just be with me, and I'll be with you?" She says it offhandedly, but she doesn't miss the small relaxation in his shoulders and the smile that chases across his face. He sighs dramatically anyway.

"God Pep, you're such a tyrant. Now I'm going to have to return the nipple clamps and martinet and the Australian whip instructor. I guess I can try to stay awake though."

She'd threaten him for being a smartass but honestly, what would be the point? He's breathing isn't he? So, smartass. Besides, she thinks there's only so much subjugation his ego can take before he explodes, and that's a mess she doesn't want to have to clean up. She withdraws her feet from his lap and sits up to straddle his thighs. His clever mouth grins at her as his hands settle on her hips. She leans in and kisses him. Just kisses him. No teeth, no teasing. She feels the brief hesitation as his hands skim up her back and doesn't think she cares for it, so she leans her head into his hands when they tangle in her hair, encouraging him. He pays her well to anticipate his needs in an administrator, but the side effect is that she's also gotten pretty good at anticipating his needs in other areas as well. She understands that the control she wrests from him enables him to release the stress and fears and strength of will he lives under all the time. She understands it is a pressure release valve that has enabled him to be a happier and a more thoughtful person. She understands also that it resolves disciplinary issues he has left over from his childhood when nobody loved him enough to punish him when he was awful.

However, she also understands that those facts don't negate the equal fact that he also needs to be secure in the fact that she belongs to him too, and that she doesn't think less of him for submitting to her and that she still thinks of him as a man. So she whimpers softly when he pulls her head back by her hair and nibbles at the long column of her throat. She slides from his lap to the floor, opens his fly and takes him in her mouth, sucking deep and hard on her knees, lavishing his hard-on with attention. Lets him stop her when he feels like it and cries out for him helplessly when he lays her down on the couch and takes her deep and slow and strong.

For the rest of the night she refrains from giving him anything even closely resembling an order. She senses he is both relieved and confused by it, but she thinks he's more relieved than he is confused, and besides, even if they both love the absolute sinful naughtiness of what they're doing, even if it's better than their favorite flavor of ice cream (dark chocolate raspberry truffle), if you eat dark chocolate raspberry truffle ice cream for every meal you eventually get sick of it. She wants them to keep on wanting this particular flavor. She hopes she's always sensitive to it when he's starting to feel a little _consumed_. There is, after all, nothing wrong with good old fashioned vanilla ice cream sometimes either. And being a dominatrix to the world's biggest ego is, frankly, sometimes exhausting.

BDSM, she is learning quickly, is a lot more than smacking somebody around or tying them to your bed and teasing them for a while. If you're not a sensitive lover and don't pay a great deal of attention to your partner's words AND body language AND what they're really saying underneath the words, you're just plain going to fuck it up. She's pretty sure if she didn't already have years and years of running Tony's life for him, she would already have failed him utterly. Because he's certainly not the kind of submissive who is able to be honest and open about what he needs. Mostly he just tries to annoy her into giving it to him.

And, predictably after a normal night as a normal couple having normal sex, he feels the need to reassure himself that it doesn't mean she's finished with owning his irritating ass, so he's terrible in the morning. He turns off the alarm when it sounds and won't let her get up to prepare for work. He pesters her incessantly while she tries to shower and get dressed, and keeps groping her while she's trying to apply her makeup, and finds it hilarious when she keeps having to wipe it off and start over. She tries to ignore him for a long time, because she hates it that he's insecure enough to need to do this, to manipulate her into punishing him just so he can be sure she still fucking loves him. Dominatrices, she realizes as she prays to whomever is listening for patience, are as much therapists as they are anything else.

So she turns on him suddenly and jerks his head back by his hair. He sucks in his breath sharply and tugs against her a little, but the faint lines of anxiety around his eyes ease and his eyelashes flutter as his pupils dilate and he starts to breathe harder.

"Horrible brat," she snaps irritably. "Go back to bed, take off your underwear, lie facedown in the middle and wait for me."

He pouts about it, which she has to admit he does adorably, but she just rolls her eyes and FINALLY finishes putting on makeup. Then she goes to him, and he has obeyed her, secure in the knowledge that she'll punish him now and therefore no longer needing to defy her. Jesus, he's a textbook case for parental insecurity issues if she ever saw one. She goes to her bag where she has stashed a purchase she made recently and takes it out, along with a small plastic bottle of lubricant. He looks over his shoulder at her and a frown line creases his forehead.

"Pepper…" he says uneasily.

"Shut up Tony," she snaps. "You pushed for this. That means you don't get to pick how you get punished."

He subsides, but there is a tiny bit of real fear in his eyes. Since she knows she's not going to hurt him even if he doesn't, she doesn't worry about this. Probably do him some good. She shoves his legs apart and sits between them, gently rubbing his bare ass. He shudders a little. She coats her fingers with the lubricant, which feels cold and slippery, then slides a finger slowly between his cheeks until she feels his opening. He gasps when her fingertip strokes once and then gently begins to slide in.

"Pepper! Wait! I don't think…."

"That's just it, Tony," she says fondly. "You don't think. You never think about what the consequences of your actions might be, not until it's too late. This scares you, and I'm not sorry. It's not going to harm you in any way, it's just going to be uncomfortable, and give you something to think about."

She lubricates him carefully and thoroughly, then withdraws her hand and presses the tip of the rubber plug against his now-quivering hole. He is shaking, truly alarmed, but she's glad he's trusting her word. Goodness knows he's far too strong for her to stop him if he ever chose NOT to submit. The tip is smaller than her finger and slides in easily, but it widens. She goes slowly, pressing in a bit and then withdrawing, twisting and rocking the rubber device while he whimpers and shivers and gasps. When it's wider than two of her fingers he whines a little as he feels the stretch. She waits for the rigid muscles in his back to relax a bit and then pushes in a little more. It isn't really very big, as butt plugs go, and she should know because she saw the website when she purchased this one. It's something she'd rather not think about, because some of them were bigger around than her bicep. How? Just how? Maybe they're just for display. Though the thought of that also just escapes her. What do you tell people? Here's my erotic art collection…it contains etchings from the 17th century, an illuminated copy of the Kama Sutra, and three impossible butt plugs? This one is conservative, a bit smaller at its widest point than the average cock, but big enough to be uncomfortable. She takes her time working it into him, feeling fascinated and surprisingly aroused by the sight of his hole stretched quivering around the plug and the helpless sounds he's making. When it reaches its widest point and she shoves it past his sphincter muscle with one hard jab, he cries out in fear and shock and pain. She imagines that it burns a bit. He subsides, shuddering and sheened with sweat, when his hole closes in relief around the thinner neck of the device, the flange of it snug between his cheeks. There is relief _now,_ for the neck is only about as big around as her thumb, but after it's been there for a while and his asshole is unable to close up all the way, it's going to start to cramp.

She spanks him with her hand, as hard and fast as she can, which isn't really saying a lot because she's no weightlifter, but it jolts the plug inside him with every spank, and he's writhing and crying out after just a few smacks. She talks to him while she spanks him.

"You're going to wear this, Tony, until I tell you to take it out. You're going to feel it in you, invading you, opening you, _violating_ you, for as long as I see fit. Do you understand me?"

"Yes," he gasps.

"Are you hard, Tony?" He nods jerkily and she smacks him harder, right over the center of the plug.

"_Ah! _Yes!" he cries.

"Good. Reach under yourself and fuck your hand while I spank you. Do it until you come, Tony." He has, unsurprisingly, obeyed this command with alacrity, his hips rolling as he fists his dick and moans softly. He is a study in conflicted emotions. He's freaked out, and alarmed that he's still turned on by it at the same time. He can't seem to decide whether to whimper or moan in pleasure. He's tighter than a drawn bow, his entire body clenched in agonized desire that frightens him. She watches him too long, and without the part of this he understands, knows how to react to, her spanking him, his rhythm falters and he makes a sound of frustration. Oops. She quickly resumes, and wonders if he can see he's only using the spanking as an excuse for getting off on this, and that the rest of it stimulates and excites him just as much, he just can't admit it. She doesn't suppose that matters, not now. It doesn't take him very long, and his groan when he comes is agonized. He keeps his face buried in the pillows for some time after that, and if the color of his ears and the back of his neck is any indication, it's because he's trying very hard to get his face under control before he looks at her. She lets him. She isn't in this to tear him down, after all.

It's hard for him to look her in the eye as he gets dressed, and he only manages it in tiny glances. He's awkward, and his body language is stiff. He's still confused, and it's distressing him. She doesn't see him this off-balance very often.

"Tony," she says gently before they get on the elevator, "If it's too much, you know you can tell me, right?"

He has a quarter in his hand and he's concentrating on spinning it across his knuckles rather than look at her.

"Please," he scoffs, though it sounds a little bit forced. "Remember me with the torture? I can take anything you can dish out, Pep, and then some. It's fine."

It's the only time she'll ask him, and if he's too stubborn to admit he's wigging out a little, he's the only one who's going to suffer for it. She smirks at him.

"We'll see how you feel about it after a couple of hours," she says sweetly, and he doesn't quite manage not to wince. "You'll wear it, Tony, until you come to me and beg me to let you take it out. Do you understand?"

He nods curtly, and veers off once they exit the elevator to go to the lab where he and Bruce and Jane are working on tachyon particles or some such thing that completely escapes her. He's walking a little funny. She wonders if he'll compensate for that in time to keep Bruce from noticing. Then she goes to work.

She sees him around lunchtime when she goes to one of the eateries to get some tea and a bagel. There are faint lines of strain on his face. She smiles at him and asks him if he's feeling all right, since there are several people nearby. He grins lopsidedly at her.

"Fine, fine," he says casually. "Got this little problem that's being a pain in my ass but nothing I can't handle."

"I'm sure," she murmurs and smirks at him as she leaves to go eat at her desk. She has too much to do to take a lunch break. She looks back over her shoulder at him as she exits and he makes a face at her. Oh well. Would he really be Tony if he ever actually learned his lesson?

He shows up slouching in her doorway around 2:30. She gestures to him to wait while she finishes her phone conversation. He glares, hunching his shoulders. He looks miserable. She hangs up, smiles at him.

"What can I do for you, Tony?" she asks. He comes in and stands in front of her desk, shifting back and forth from one foot to the other.

"You can let me get rid of this fucking thing," he says grumpily.

"I thought it was nothing you can't handle."

"Pepper…"

"All you've ever had to do was ask. I never said you had to wear the thing all day long. You're the one who decided to be stubborn about it."

"I want to take it out," he growls.

"Was that a question?"

"God damn it, Pepper!"

"Really, Tony?" He's being a lot more pigheaded than usual for some reason. She suspects it's probably because he's having a hard time with admitting to himself how much he got off on having something shoved up his ass. Somehow Tony always seems to think that if he ignores a thing, it will cease to exist. Like that Nick Fury was right about him. And that his father's partner was a greedy psychotic pig. And that Justin Hammer was a serious threat. And that being a hero was more than just flying around doing cool stuff in a suit of armor. And that he isn't always the biggest dog in town. And that he loved her.

He sighs heavily, his ears reddening.

"Please can I take this fucking thing out now?" he mutters at the floor. Because he's miserable, and she honestly thinks he's put this off so long that he really isn't enjoying himself anymore, she doesn't press the issue.

"Of course you can," she says gently, and he flees her office.

She doesn't see him again until that evening when they attend a small dinner party Jane's hosting in one of the multiple reception rooms because she says they should all socialize together more often, and that she likes to cook. Pepper tends to agree with her. The Avengers have become a much better team than they started out to be, but she thinks that if they were all better friends, they'd probably make an even better team. The party is casual, so she's glad to change out of business attire and put on comfortable capris and a sleeveless linen top with a pair of flat slides that don't kill her arches. It feels a little odd to see all of them in one place wearing jeans or casual pants and t-shirts (well, except Steve, who still wears pressed khaki slacks and a short sleeved button-down shirt even when he goes to the beach). A room full of super heroes out of costume is kind of surreal. She'd sent Tony an email earlier, because she'd had so much to do before she could clock out for the day, she just said he should go ahead and she'd meet him there.

He's in the center of the room, unsurprisingly, and there's a holographic screen up in the center of the gathering. He and Bruce are arguing good-naturedly about something. Tony's hands are a blur as he he manipulates images and data.

"I'm telling you, Tony," says Bruce doggedly, "it doesn't matter if you fine it down to twelve parsecs. Even if it's _feasible_, it's stupid. We're not doing it."

"Banner," says Tony impatiently. "How can you even say that? This is science! It needs to be done purely for its own sake, not to mention the complete epicness of the venture! This is a once in a lifetime opportunity. Groundbreaking even. We'll be famous! Well…more famous. Me more than you, of course, but you'll get credit too, at least a footnote. How can you think about turning your back on this opportunity?"

"Because he's not stupid," says Natasha coolly, walking through the hologram with a drink in her hand. Tony flaps his hand at her dismissively.

"What are they talking about," Pepper asks Jane, who has come to greet her and hands her a margarita.

"Hm. Using nanotechnology to change Director Fury's leather trenchcoat into an evening gown I think," she says. "Do you think he's serious?"

"Probably," laughs Pepper. "Is there anything I can do to help you?"

Tony notices she's entered the room, nods at her absently, and goes back to arguing with Bruce.

"Nope. Got it all under control," says Jane. "Lasagna in about ten minutes. Just enjoy yourself."

She does, but by the time dinner is served, she's starting to suspect Tony may be avoiding her a little. After Bruce finally walks away from the nanotechnology discussion shaking his head and laughing, Tony commandeers Steve's attention for an argument about whether modern movies or old classics are better. Since Tony mostly watches the Discovery and History channels when he watches television at all, she seriously doubts he cares. He's drinking pretty steadily, and though he sits next to her at dinner, he speaks expansively and flamboyantly to anyone and everyone, pontificating and showing off even more than usual, which is saying something. Because the team is still relatively young, most of them don't notice, but Natasha does, because she spent a good deal of time undercover with Stark Technologies for Fury and she knows both of them better than the others do. Pepper catches her looking at Tony with a tiny frown on her face, and then she glances searchingly at Pepper, who shrugs minutely at Natasha's questioning eyebrows. By the time the dishes are cleared and everyone is hanging out, Tony is well on his way to drunk. Natasha slides up to where Pepper and Jane are chatting.

"Natasha!" says Jane brightly. "How was your dinner?"

"I liked it," says the superspy with a smile. Pepper finds this a little startling, and suddenly realizes she's been holing herself up in Stark Tower way too much because she hadn't even known Jane and the Black Widow had become friends. Or that Natasha _had_ friends, for that matter. She has heard only what are clearly heavily edited snippets of information from Tony that have led her to believe Hawkeye and the Black Widow have recently gone through a number of terrifying and cathartic experiences together and are now lovers. She's thrilled by this actually, because being the only couple in a team of supers is kind of uncomfortable, being joined by Jane and Thor is a little hard because Tony is jealous of Thor, and it means that at least some of them now have people to socialize with who they don't have to hide their abilities from. Tonight it's so patently obvious that Natasha and Clint are just plain gone over each other, it would take a blind man not to see it. Or at least one as naïve as Steve Rogers, who is the only one who doesn't seem to notice the heated glances or casual touches. They're aware of each other at all times, and seeing them gravitate towards one another without doing it intentionally is really sweet. Neither of them does it in a way that makes it look like they don't want the other out of their sight. They do it in a purely subconscious way that shows their bodies draw them to one another because theirs is a sentient flesh that seeks the center, and that center is where they're touching, even if it's just shoulders or elbows or hips bumping in passing.

Yesterday, thinks Pepper, she and Tony were the same way. Like Magnets.

"Are you ok?" mouths Natasha silently. Pepper smiles and nods. Tony's just feeling the need to reassert his machismo a little in front of his friends. She doesn't really get it, because she never has and never will embarrass him that way in front of them, for heaven's sake, but there it is.

"I am SO glad Bruce wasn't allergic to anything," says Jane, fanning herself a little. Bruce, overhearing from a few feet away where he is talking to Steve now, laughs. "Doctor Foster not only made me fill out an extensive survey about allergies, she took my blood and did histamine response testing with every item on tonight's menu."

"Can't have your guests hulk out during dinner from a peanut or red pepper flakes or being unable to tolerate gluten or avocados, and kill all your dinner guests," says Tony expansively, coming up behind them, putting his arms around Pepper and Natasha as he horns in on the conversation. Bruce looks stricken.

"Tony!" she cries in outrage.

Natasha evades his touch and turns to face him. She pokes him in the chest with one long painted nail and get in his face, where her voice is very quiet and does not carry throughout the room.

"Stark," she says coldly. "Check your ego before you hurt your best friend AND your lover in less than ten seconds flat."

"What's gotten into the infamous Black Widow?" he gasps in mock dismay. "Can it be she's been defanged? Changed from deadly assassin to toothless mutt because her boyfriend finally wears the pants?"

"Natasha and I are both just fine in our own pants," says Clint coolly, sliding up beside the Black Widow and standing shoulder to shoulder with her, staring steadily at Tony. He's angry, but he doesn't show it. "And if I think maybe you better shut your mouth before Pepper decides it's writing checks your ass can't cash."

Pepper is frankly too shocked to say anything, and when Tony turns to Clint, there is a roaring sound in her ears because she knows somehow, before he even starts to speak, that he's going to say something so awful she can't bear to hear it. But she does.

"Pepper," says Tony flippantly, "does exactly what she's paid to do."

She feels the blood drain from her face as the room falls into a shocked silence. Numbly, she turns without a word and walks expressionlessly from the room. Dimly, as though from a great distance, she hears the meaty sound of a fist striking flesh and then the thud of a body striking the wall. She cannot bring herself to care.

Mechanically, blindly, she goes to the parking garage, gets in her car and drives him. She undresses jerkily, puts on pajamas, and climbs into bed, where she lies staring emptily at her ceiling for a very long time.


	4. Atonement

**Because He Needs It Part 4**

**Atonement**

I'm SOOOOO sorry this has taken so long. Life has thrown me several curve balls recently and I haven't been much in the writing mood. Plus I realized I had actually written myself kind of into a corner and had no idea how Tony was going to get himself out of this one. To be honest, as I start to write it, I am still not sure! But love, I believe, sees beyond our weaknesses and failings. I hope by the time I'm done, Pepper and Tony will be Pepperony again. I'm not sure if this will be smutty or not, so just in case, be warned.

_!

Tony

He wakes up with a hangover bigger than the Hulk's large purple pants. Or Rhode Island, whichever is bigger. He moans softly as he tries to remember if Thor actually hit him in the head with that stupid hammer or if he's imagining things. His face hurts, even more than his head. He tries to remember who punched him in the face as he very cautiously wiggles his jaw ad decides it isn't broken but that it was a near thing. He thinks it was Barton. Or Romanoff. Maybe both of them.

The previous evening comes crashing back to him like the cold slap of an Arctic Ocean wave and he hides his face in his pillow as he remembers the unbelievably stupid things he said. Jesus, why didn't somebody stop him? Pepper's going to make him pay for last night in ways he can't even begin to imagine. He considers hiding up here in his room all day in hopes that she'll get over some of her mad before he actually has to be within reach of her, then realizes he can't let himself do that. It will only be worse if he waits.

He manages to make his way to the shower after downing a handful of aspirin with a huge glass of water, and once he is done he is beginning to feel almost human again. He tells himself it's the hangover that makes him dress slowly, and take his time making his way to the elevator and down to the offices below. He goes to his office, telling the receptionist on duty to let him know whenever Miss Potts has a few minutes free. The young woman's response stops him in his tracks.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Stark. Miss Potts isn't in today," she says, the sentence going up at the end almost like it's a question. Pepper hasn't missed a day of work since he hired her. Dread builds in the pit of his stomach as he continues into his office to call and find out if she's feeling ok. There's a creamy envelope on his desk. He picks it up with trepidation and takes out the folded sheet of paper inside. He pretends not to notice that his hand shakes a little as he holds it out to read what it says.

"_Not anymore, she doesn't. Good luck, Mr. Stark."_

Jesus Christ, if she means to punish him, she couldn't have done anything more effective. He sits slowly down in his chair and the paper falls from nerveless fingers to drift silently to the floor. She cannot possibly mean it, he tells himself. She's angry with him, of course. He was an ass last night. He knows he embarrassed her in front of the rest of the team, some of whom she considers friends. He knows he hurt Bruce's feelings too, and pissed off the deadly duo to boot. But Jesus. Pepper can't quit. He doesn't think he can run Stark Industries without her. He knows he can't run his own life without her. Realizes suddenly that it really isn't very much of a life at all without her. He was taught as a child that the only person he could depend on in the world was himself, and he has lived by that lesson for a great many years. Pepper has shown him, gracefully and efficiently, compassionately and ruthlessly and sometimes in humiliating and painful ways, that he depends on her now too. He glances down at the note by his feet and his eyes flinch away from it as he remembers her face when he called her his whore in front of everyone whose opinion could possibly matter. What the fuck has he done? And for what? Because she made him feel uncomfortable? Like that's never happened before. Besides, if he's honest with himself (which ok, he often isn't but today it seems like a really bad idea to be anything other than straight up with himself) he did most of it to himself. She'd offered him an out. She'd put the ball in his court and all he'd had to do was go to her and ask. But goddamn if it wasn't so far out of his comfort zone that he'd reacted in his old typical way. If he has one besetting sin (well, aside from being arrogant, snarky, outspoken, heavy-handed, elitist, and a drunk) it is pride. Fuck, he hopes this fall isn't going to kill him.

He has flowers sent to her apartment. They are yellow and pink tulips. Since the strawberry incident, he has learned to pay a little more attention, and knows that they are her favorite flowers. He waits long enough for them to have been delivered, and then he calls. She answers neither her cell nor her home phone. He tries again, and leaves a message this time on both.

"I'm an asshole, Pepper. Come back to work. Please."

And

"Pepper, I'm sorry for being a jerk last night. It was the booze talking, not me. I didn't mean what I said. Forgive me?"

As the day goes on, he leaves more messages. They are both increasingly silly and increasingly desperate. He goes to her apartment later in the afternoon to make her listen to him if he has to. She isn't home. Has in fact, he learns from the building's super, turned in her notification of termination on her lease. Tony feels the bottom drop out of his world.

Pepper

She's wrapping china and putting it in boxes when the doorbell rings. She has no clear idea of where she's going to go or what she'll do when she gets there; she only knows she can't bear to be _here_ anymore. Everything here is stamped all over every surface with him. The surfaces both conventional and unconventional on which they have made love or fucked like mindless beasts, the wine glasses over which they have exchanged meaningful glances, the kitchen in which they have stood side by side and chopped vegetables for supper, the towels with which he has reverently dried her body after he has skillfully bathed every inch of her, the mirror in which she has seen him behind her as he leaned negligently in the bathroom doorway and watched her applying her makeup, the bed where….no. Enough. She is crying again and she's had enough of that. She has served faithfully and well as his employee for many years, and more recently has opened her whole heart to him as well, but until last night he has _never_ blurred the lines between the two. Never made her feel like his whore. Tony's ego and pride are bigger than the entire Eastern Seaboard. She has her own pride as well. Hers doesn't get in her own way like his does, but there are simply some things it will never tolerate, not even from someone she loves so much she feels as though every cell of her being is howling in misery.

She ignores the door, dashes the tears viciously from her cheeks, and keeps packing. The ringing changes to knocking, which she also ignores, until she hears the voices.

"Pepper? Pepper…open the door!" It's Jane.

"Do as she says, Potts. I don't care if your security is Stark technology. I can have it open in less than ten seconds." That's Natasha, which surprises her. She feels as though she barely knows the Black Widow. Heaving a deep sigh, she goes slowly to the door and lets them in. There is concern in their eyes, especially Jane's, and it's more than she can take. She bursts into tears.

"Oh honey," says Jane sympathetically, and opens her arms, pulling Pepper close. Natasha closes the door behind them and, though Pepper cannot see her, looks terribly discomfited.

"I'm not hugging her," she says, prowling into the apartment, eyes going automatically to all the windows, marking where the exits are. That they are 17 stories up is apparently not an issue.

The two women make themselves at home. For Jane, this involves going to the kitchen and setting a pot of water on to boil for tea. Natasha rolls her eyes and raids Pepper's liquor cabinet, plunking a heavy-bottomed highball glass full of whiskey down in front of Pepper. There is more eye-rolling when Pepper makes a face at her, whereupon Natasha stalks back to the bar a whips up a pitcher of margaritas with an expertise that is a little frightening. Jane abandons the tea idea and they both sit down in the living room, Jane on the couch with Pepper and Natasha sprawled in a big squashy armchair.

The margaritas are excellent. As the pitcher slowly empties, the women join Pepper in bemoaning the stupidity of men in general and Tony in particular. Natasha is unabashedly gleeful when she informs Pepper that both she and Hawkeye decked him simultaneously as Pepper fled the dinner party the night before. Pepper tries not to worry that they may have broken him. Mostly she succeeds. They are more than a little bit drunk at the end of an hour. Pepper peers at Natasha and thinks she is quite probably faking the extent of her inebriation, but what the hell.

"I'm going to miss you guys so much," she sniffles sadly into her fourth or fifth margarita.

"Why?" demands Natasha suspiciously. "Are you planning to shoot at us?" Jane finds this hysterical and chokes on her margarita. Pepper pounds her helpfully on the back.

"No! Of course not!" she says aggrievedly. "I mean when I'm gone."

"You're not going anywhere," says Natasha dismissively.

"I have to," wails Pepper, causing Jane to pat her hand reassuringly. "I can't go back to work for him after what he said. And in front of you guys too!" She's crying again, a little.

"Don't be stupid," says Natasha. Jane glares at her.

"I told you to be helpful," she says reprovingly, "or you had to stay home!"

"I am being helpful! And I wanted to stay home anyway! I don't do this feeling shit and you know it, so it's your fault if I screw it up. Besides, she IS being stupid!"

"I know that," says Jane, which startles Pepper, "but you don't have to say it that way."

"I'm not being stupid," insists Pepper hotly. "I can't accept being insulted that way. If Tony doesn't respect me, then not only can I not be his lover anymore, but I can't work for him anymore either. Treating me like a whore ruins my credibility with everybody, and while I may not have as much pride as he does, I still do have some!"

Natasha opens her mouth to speak, but closes it firmly when Jane glares at her.

"Honey," she says patiently, "since when is pride more important than love? And you do love him, don't you?"

"Well….of course. I guess I have forever. But that doesn't change what happened…"

"I'm not saying Tony wasn't wrong," continues the astrophysicist. "He was an idiot. He's going to have a hell of a time making things up with Bruce too. But Pepper….we…the three of us here in this room I mean…we're women who have chosen…er….unconventional….relationships."

"We're freaks," clarifies Natasha cheerfully. Jane tries to look severe. She's not very good at it.

"AS I was saying. Do you honestly think Natasha or I haven't had some really bad moments along the way or that we haven't both seriously considered walking away because things just got too weird or intense or out of control? Do you think none of us, and by that I mean me and Natasha and Clint and Thor, have made any mistakes or stepped on each other's toes or hurt one another's' feelings?"

Pepper, who has only seen what she now surmises is mostly the end result of those relationships building to where they are now, _had_ pretty much thought that. She's beginning to feel a little bit uncomfortable, but she wants to hear more.

"I'm an astrophysicist," Jane clarifies needlessly. "I am one of the leading members of my field. My research and findings on the Einstein-Rosen Bridge and portal theory are accepted by people I never thought I'd be able to rub shoulders with, and now some of them call me for advice. I am a crazy smart person and an independent woman and I don't need a man to make me feel that way about myself. How do you think it feels to admit to myself that my boyfriend is practically a caveman and that I am pretty much his sex doll he can do whatever he wants with? God, Pepper, some days I wake up thinking I am being an idiot and that I'm weak and I am letting him walk all over me and that my colleagues would make me a laughingstock if they knew."

"I'd like to see them try," murmurs Natasha. Jane smiles at her.

"Nobody thinks that about you, Jane," says Pepper reassuringly. It's true. They really don't. Mostly she thinks women envy Jane and men think she's pretty brave to voluntarily hop into the sack with someone who can pick up a building with one arm and call down hurricanes and knock the Hulk into next week.

"I know they don't. But there have been a lot of days _I _have thought that about me. Plus I'm pretty sure you heard about the time I nearly got myself and Steve killed on an op because I let my insecurity get in the way."

"You did not," Pepper says supportively. Natasha shakes her head in disgust at Pepper.

"Don't sugar coat it, Potts," she says baldly. "Yes, she did."

Pepper doesn't think it wise to argue with the Black Widow. Besides, she's right. Tony told her the story, and Jane's lucky it turned out as well as it did. She's also heard the story of how Jane made it right with everybody, and blushes a little when she thinks about it. God, she'd have been so humiliated. The thought niggles at the back of her mind that this is her pride talking and maybe she should wonder how much it's getting in the way. She ignores it. This is still not the same thing. Natasha is staring at her keenly.

"Pepper," she says, leaning forward to gaze intently at her. "You're sitting there thinking Jane can't compare this to what Tony did to you last night, but you're wrong." Pepper is taken aback by this statement and wonders wildly whether Natasha can now add mind reading to her already-impressive list of skills. "Jane emasculated Thor in front of the whole team by putting herself in harm's way during an op and putting him in the position of having to protect her instead of doing his job. She damaged his credibility with the rest of the team and if he'd taken her side about it, it would have driven a wedge of distrust between him and the rest of us that he might never have been able to fix. Every single one of us was thinking about what would have happened if Steve had died because Thor chose Jane over him. Thor knew this. It was a horrible position for him to be in. Sorry Jane," she adds, throwing a mollifying smile her friend's way. Jane smiles back.

"It's ok. What you're saying is true. And also water under the bridge. The point is that what I did was so much worse than Tony calling you horrible names in front of the rest of the team, but Thor forgave me."

Pepper has no response to this, but she's thinking hard now. Natasha picks the ball back up and runs with it some more.

"And Jesus, Potts. Do you really think Clint and I haven't done some pretty unforgiveable things to each other to get to where we are now?"

Pepper looks at her, mystified. The thought has never occurred to her, truthfully. Natasha closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, as though steeling herself for some unpleasant task.

"Do you remember after we held off the Chitauri, how Hawkeye kind of hid out from everybody for a long time?"

"Yes." Of course Pepper remembers everything about that time. She had almost missed saying goodbye to Tony because she hadn't heard his call over the footage on the television she'd been watching on the jet. She has agonized over that so often since then that she can't even count the times she's thought of how she would have felt if he really had died that day, died alone because she hadn't picked up the phone. She's starting to find it a tiny bit difficult to keep up being this pissed off at him.

"Okay. So Clint, after I hit him really hard in the head and broke Loki's control over him, still remembered everything he'd done while that bastard was holding the reins. He was remembering every colleague he killed and blaming himself for it."

"That's crazy," protests Pepper. "None of it was his fault!"

"Yeah, pretty much everybody got that but him. So I knocked some sense into him."

"How?"

"I tied him up, cut off all his clothes, beat him bloody, and raped him," says Natasha quietly. Jesus. Pepper stares at her in stunned amazement. Natasha continues, ruthlessly. "He forgave me. Then he hacked my file, which I'm pretty sure your boyfriend made happen by the way, took me to an abandoned orphanage, again Tony's doing, where he hypnotized me and tortured me with a stun gun to break down my conditioning so I could remember some things about my past that the Red Room had made sure I forgot. After it was done, I flew off in the helijet without him and stayed gone for several weeks, letting him think he was never going to see me again. But I forgave him. We saved each other, Pepper. We did it in horrible, painful, gut-wrenching ways that no sane person could forgive, but we did, because ultimately what we are together is more important than hurt or pride or our fucked up pasts." Natasha's blue eyes bore mercilessly into her own, and Pepper starts to feel a little bit foolish.

"You and Tony complete each other, Pepper," says Jane gently. "Don't throw it away because he's been a moron."

"Yeah, not like that's ever happened before," says Natasha. "Is your pride really so important to you that you'd throw both your lives away because a bratty little boy called you a mean name on the playground in front of your friends?"

Sitting here with these two courageous, strong women who have laid bare some horribly intimate secrets at her feet, Pepper suddenly feels like an idiot.

"No," she says softly. "No, it's not."

Tony

He can't sleep, so he drinks. He puts away close to a fifth of scotch while he sits in the dark on his expensive leather sofa, staring out over the lights of the city, in his expensive Manhattan penthouse. The scotch is over a hundred years old and cost him more than a thousand dollars. The glass he's drinking it out of is Baccarat crystal. The rug under his bare feet was hand-woven in Turkey hundreds of years ago and is worth a fortune.

He would burn it all in a heartbeat if it would bring Pepper back. The trappings of wealth and power are meaningless. Everything is meaningless without her. He'd probably have pissed it all away by now if he hadn't had her, always there by his side, running things for him. A great deal more than he is, Pepper IS Stark Industries. He wonders dully if, when it crashes without her hand on the rudder to keep things under control and thus ceases to exist, if he will then cease to exist as well. He thinks he hopes he does.

He has gone over what he said to her thousands of times in his own mind, soundlessly screaming at himself to bite his fucking tongue, but unable to do anything but relive the incident over and over like people watching disaster footage on television. It is horrible, and he can neither stop it nor look away. And for what? Jesus, he'd wear the fucking butt plug all day for fifty years if she wanted him to, to prove how sorry he is. Coated with Ben Gay ointment and salt if she wants that too. And thank her for it.

Pepper's given him something he himself had never even been able to admit he wanted, let alone ask for. To be able to be vulnerable with her, to be weak and to submit to another's will has been the most exhilarating experience of his life. For the hours in which she torments him, own him, the weight of the world he carries on his shoulders just floats away, and he is free. That he has let himself feel shame in it is his own failing, not hers, for she has never made him feel less than a man for it. She has in fact done her level best to make sure he understands that it makes him MORE of a man to be honest about his needs and to let her give them to him.

And he has thrown it away because having something shoved up his ass made him wonder for a little bit if he was gay, because he liked it a little. Ok no, because it just flat did it for him, and it made him question is masculinity. He has acted like a rotten little playground bully because something happened to him that made him a little uncomfortable. She had pushed him, and he had pushed back instead of accepting it with dignity or else talking to her about how it made him feel. It isn't like she'd just foisted it on him out of the blue. He'd been asking, no face it, he'd been fucking begging for her to punish him that morning. Jesus, how stupid can you get, if one night of vanilla sex makes you so fucking insecure you have to goad your partner into reassuring you she still plans to blister your ass for you when you're horrid? And how dare he take exception to the method she'd chosen when she hadn't asked for him to be insufferable that morning in the first place? Besides, he could have said no. She'd given him an out, more than once. He remembers how he'd felt, face down on his bed, with queasiness roiling in his guts as the alien strangeness of the rubber slid up into him, opening him, invading him. He'd been freaked out, scared of anticipated pain, though there had been none. No, it hadn't hurt, but it had felt strange, and had wrecked him in ways he'd been unprepared for. He'd been unprepared for the way the slight burn, and the feeling of being violated and filled had gone straight to his cock like lightning too. When he'd come, at her orders, spilling over his fist and into his sheets like a schoolboy, he'd been even more shaken by how hard he'd come, with the quivering ring of muscle gripping the flange of the plug convulsively, its tip stimulating his prostate. It had felt so damn good he'd nearly passed out, or cried. Or both. Which had made him feel weird, and stupid, and weak. And then later, when it started to just fucking hurt, but he'd come that far with it and was determined not to let it affect him so, he had gone way past where he'd enjoyed it anymore, and had just been miserable when he'd finally admitted defeat and gone to her to beg to be rid of it. Tony hates to lose, and he knows now he'd been the only one responsible for his humiliation and defeat because if he'd just been honest with her and himself, he wouldn't have had to admit defeat at all.

Hell, he doesn't deserve her anyway, and he knows it. He throws the highball glass at the window, where it shatters. The windows are bullet-proof safety glass. He staggers to his feet and makes it to his bedroom somehow, where he falls facedown and finally manages to fall into a shallow, fitful doze in which he dreams he is lost inside a white and featureless room from which there is no exit, and can hear Pepper calling his name but knows he will never find her. She seems so close though, and he can hear her say his name as clear as day, and his heart clenches as he moans softly in his sleep, reaching blindly for her. When she slips silently into his arms, he grasps her convulsively and she squeaks a little in alarm. Since she's never made that noise in his dreams before, especially the nightmares, he is dragged muzzily back to semi-consciousness where he becomes abruptly aware that she is in his bed and he is currently making it difficult for her to breathe.

He releases her in alarm and jerks back to press himself against the wall. His dreams have never been quite so real before. Plus, she's laughing at him.

"Tony, wake up," she says gently, and he realizes he isn't dreaming at all, but that she is really here, in his bed, which is usually not where one shows up when one is planning to dump one's lover and move to Albuquerque. He grinds his fist into his eyes to make sure he's not hallucinating. She's still there, only now she's laughing at him.

"Pepper?" he whispers hoarsely. Incredulously.

"Yes Tony?"

"Not that I'm not grateful, because Jesus Christ I'll crawl on broken glass and sing fucking halleluiah to prove my gratitude, but what are you doing here?"

"I don't think 'fucking halleluiah' is in any hymnal I've ever heard of before," she murmurs amusedly, and the ice around his heart begins to crack. "But I guess I'm here because a couple of very good friends helped me see that this is where I belong, no matter how impossible you are sometimes."

"Oh God, Pepper. I am so godamn sorry," he whispers. He can't speak louder than that. The ice, which is now splintering, steals his voice with the intensity of the sensation at its absence.

"I know," she says solemnly. "And I forgive you."

"I'll prove it any way you want, Pep," he says fervently, and means every word. "I'll take any punishment you want to give, and I'll thank you for it. I was stupid. I'll wear the thing for a week. You name it, and whatever you decide, I'll abide by it."

"I'm not going to punish you, Tony. It looks to me like you've done a damn fine job of that yourself tonight," she says, stopping his vows with a finger on his lips. God, her touch feels like a drink of cool water in the desert against his skin. He wants to suck the finger into his mouth and taste her. He doesn't, but he trembles slightly in resisting the urge.

"Please, Pepper," he whispers, desperate to atone in some way for his hurtful, cruel words. She rolls her eyes a little.

"Good grief. If you can't forgive yourself without me beating the shit out of you, then fine. I'll do it. But…tomorrow, okay? Could you just hold onto me tonight, Tony? Be with me. Be in me. Now, Tony. Please."

And as he slips inside her seconds later, and she grips tight around him like a silken glove, it is like being born, and if he's thinking about the delicious nervous fear of the moments she's gone from him while she fetches her hairbrush, or the delicious pain of it cracking loud and solid against his flesh, and how safe it makes him feel to let go with her and let her hold the reins and to let him be the lost little boy she rescues every day, he doesn't say so, he just loves her deep and sure and strong, but when her nails dig in slightly to the muscles of his ass and she smirks at him a little even as she gasps his name and comes apart for him, he knows she's thinking about it too.


End file.
